Drifter Known for Menace Is Charged With Raping Woman, 73, in Central Park

By WENDY RUDERMAN and NATE SCHWEBER

Published: September 14, 2012

the rape, beating and robbery of a 73-year-old woman in Central Park.

The suspect, David Albert Mitchell, 42, was nothing if not distinctive. His body was a canvas of dark, mythical tattoos: a grim reaper, dragons, Nordic warriors, castles and ''some kind of deadly insect,'' said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman. Other tattoos included two teardrops under Mr. Mitchell's left eye and one small teardrop below his right.">

A drifter who hailed from the South and spent most of his adult life in and out of prison on a grab bag of felonies, including kidnapping and abduction, was arrested on Thursday and charged with the rape, beating and robbery of a 73-year-old woman in Central Park.

The suspect, David Albert Mitchell, 42, was nothing if not distinctive. His body was a canvas of dark, mythical tattoos: a grim reaper, dragons, Nordic warriors, castles and ''some kind of deadly insect,'' said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman. Other tattoos included two teardrops under Mr. Mitchell's left eye and one small teardrop below his right.

Mr. Mitchell, a parolee from Virginia who arrived in New York City in July, found his way to Central Park, where he almost immediately inspired fear in park regulars, one of whom he threatened with a knife on Aug. 20, the authorities said.

''He's a psycho,'' said Ayrton dos Santos Jr., known as the mayor of Strawberry Fields, a section of the park where a memorial to John Lennon attracts throngs of tourists. ''He pulled a shank on me and said, 'I got no problem taking this knife and plugging it into you and spattering blood all over this circle in front of all these people.' ''

Video surveillance images of the suspect were distributed by the police on Wednesday afternoon, hours after the attack on the woman, a bird-watcher who the police said had been brutalized just before noon Wednesday on a wood-chip path not far from Strawberry Fields. By nightfall, three rookie police officers patrolling the Upper West Side recognized the suspect from a grainy photograph and apprehended the man only blocks from the park.

On Thursday, the victim, her face still swollen and bruised, picked out Mr. Mitchell in a lineup, Mr. Browne said. Prosecutors charged Mr. Mitchell with predatory sexual assault, rape, criminal sex act, robbery and criminal possession of stolen property. They also charged Mr. Mitchell, who went by Keith, with menacing in the knife-brandishing episode.

As officers escorted Mr. Mitchell from a Special Victims Unit building on Thursday, he spit in the direction of an assemblage of news reporters.

Early Friday morning, Mr. Mitchell was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court and ordered held without bail.

The heinous nature of the crime surprised New Yorkers, chilling even veteran members of law enforcement.

''Central Park is a well-policed precinct, with low crime,'' Mr. Browne said. ''This attack, the viciousness of it, the fact that it was in broad daylight, stands out as an anomaly in many respects, including that it was the only rape in Central Park this year.''

The police said the victim had been scanning the treetops for birds, carrying a professional camera with a zoom lens in her backpack, when Mr. Mitchell appeared. Mr. Mitchell, the woman told police, posed a calculating question: ''Do you remember me?''

The woman pretended that she did not, though she instantly recognized Mr. Mitchell as the man she photographed some nine days earlier in the forested Ramble when she caught him masturbating. In that first encounter, Mr. Mitchell ordered her to delete the image. She refused, and he tried unsuccessfully to wrest the camera away from her before she ran off. She did not report the encounter to the police, Mr. Browne said.

On Wednesday, Mr. Mitchell threw the woman to the ground, battered her with his fists and raped her, the police said. He fled with her backpack, which contained her camera, they said.

Mr. Browne said he did not know whether the camera that Mr. Mitchell stole was the same one she had used to photograph him. Investigators recovered the photo from the woman's computer on Thursday, Mr. Browne said.

The three officers, Enmanuel A. Rodriguez and Steven F. Ourelio, both 26, and Sicelin Ortiz, 23, had been on the force since January. The officers usually patrol the Washington Heights area, but on Thursday they were among those sent to the area near the park in search of the rape suspect, Mr. Browne said.

They spotted Mr. Mitchell walking on Amsterdam Avenue, near 77th Street, where he was taken into custody.

Mr. Mitchell had an extensive criminal history. The authorities in West Virginia charged Mr. Mitchell with murder and sexual assault in January 1989, though a year later he was found not guilty, Mr. Browne said. He spent about a decade in a West Virginia prison after he was convicted of robbery in July 1990. Soon after he was paroled in 2000, he was convicted of larceny and spent another 13 months in prison, according to the West Virginia Parole Board.

In February 2004, he was sentenced to just over eight years in prison for abduction and kidnapping in Tazewell County, Va.

PHOTO: Police officers on Thursday escorted David Albert Mitchell, who they said had raped, beaten and robbed a 73-year-old bird-watcher in Central Park.(PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT CAPLIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

the rape, beating and robbery of a 73-year-old woman in Central Park.

The suspect, David Albert Mitchell, 42, was nothing if not distinctive. His body was a canvas of dark, mythical tattoos: a grim reaper, dragons, Nordic warriors, castles and ''some kind of deadly insect,'' said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman. Other tattoos included two teardrops under Mr. Mitchell's left eye and one small teardrop below his right.">